On today’s show…automakers want their say on how VW spends its diesel settlement…a driving school in Madrid adopts CNG cars to avoid driving restrictions…and Continental develops new technology for diesel engines of the future. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

OEMs TRY TO INFLUENCE VW SETTLEMENT
As part of its settlement over its diesel emission scandal, Volkswagen agreed to invest $2 billion in the U.S. to build an EV infrastructure. But now other automakers are trying to influence how that money is spent in California, which will receive nearly half of the investment. They claim VW is planning to build charging stations in locations that already have a high number of EVs and would rather VW focus on areas with a limited number of electrics to try and spur growth. They also claim the settlement gives VW a competitive advantage. And not surprisingly, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai argue that a good chunk of that money should go towards building hydrogen stations, since the infrastructure for fuel cells is lacking. The California Air Resources Board is in the process of reviewing VW’s proposal, so this is an issue worth keeping an eye on.

DIESEL DEMAND DROPS IN EUROPE
And speaking of VW and its diesel scandal, its impact goes well beyond the company itself. As we’ve reported, Europe is cracking down on diesel cars, with some cities banning or restricting their use. While other countries are looking to increase taxes on them. And not surprisingly sales of diesels are starting to slide in Europe. Last month, in Germany diesels dropped 20% and in Britain they plunged 27%. And Reuters reports this is driving down the value of used diesels, which could impact financing plans.

But even though diesels seem to be in dire straits, the supplier company Continental has developed a diesel system for the future. We’ll have more about that right after this.

CONTINENTAL DEVELOPS NEW TECH FOR DIESELS
Diesels aren’t looked at very favorably right now, but supplier Continental believes the diesel engine will continue to play an important role for the foreseeable future. And it’s come up with its own solution for cleaning them up. It first starts with a new injection system. When the vehicle is first warming up, a very little bit of fuel is injected after the combustion process, which is not ignited until it reaches the catalyst. The SCR catalyst has to reach a certain temperature before it starts converting NOx emissions and this process speeds that time up by about 8-minutes. Obviously, that wastes fuel, so the next step is to tack on a 48-volt hybrid system. This consists of a belt-driven starter-alternator that’s rated around 15 kW and a small lithium-ion battery. Now the vehicle can recoup electricity through regenerative braking and the starter-alternator can assist the engine on hard acceleration. The last step of the process is an electrically heated catalyst. As we said before, the faster the catalyst heats up, the faster it can start converting NOx. This has no effect on fuel consumption because the system uses stored energy from the lithium battery. Continental was able to take a diesel vehicle that already met Euro 6 Diesel standards and reduce its nitrogen oxide emissions by 60%, while improving CO2 emissions and fuel consumption by 2%. That’s an impressive NOx reduction, but if this is how diesels are going to meet current and future emission standards, they may be dead. Diesels are already more expensive than their gasoline counterparts and a 48-volt system alone will tack on another $900 to $1200. So, it’s not a cheap setup.

Coming up next, a look at an on-demand parts delivery service Ford created for its dealers.

FORD’S ON-DEMAND PARTS SERVICE GROWS
Several years ago, Ford created a new parts delivery service called Hot Shot. It allows Ford dealers to sell high-volume maintenance parts to independent shops or other dealers. Some parts can take a long time to get, but Hot Shots promises to be there within two hours of the order. One dealer in New York says the service has grown its customer base by 125% and boosted its bottom line by 20%. And because of results like that, Ford says Hot Shot has grown from just a handful of dealers a few years ago to more than 300 today.

There has never been such a dynamic time in the automotive industry. Don’t miss any of the action. Get Autoline Daily delivered to your inbox every day. Subscribe for free and stay on top of the latest news.

SCHOOL ADOPTS CNG CARS TO AVOID DRIVING BANS
As I mentioned earlier in the show, a number of major cities in Europe are restricting the use of cars with internal combustion engines in an effort to reduce emissions. This is having an impact on the entire industry, including driving schools. So in order to continue to operate, one school in Madrid has converted its fleet to CNG powered SEAT Leons. That’s because CNG models don’t face the same driving bans as gasoline and diesel cars. In addition to that, the CNG cars are also cheaper to operate. The school saves 800 euros in fuel per year, per car compared to a diesel. And the CNG cars emit 85% fewer NOx emissions compared to a diesel. This a great way for young people to continue to learn how to drive in a big city.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and making Autoline Daily a part of your day.

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The VW settlement deal sure seems like a win-win for Volkswagen. So they have to spend $2B putting in charging stations. These stations should be profit machines since VW will likely get a tax break for installing them plus the profit to be made on charging. And who is going to audit the actual costs of installation? What’s to stop VW from claiming they spent $2B when their costs might have been much less. They’ve committed fraud already, so who’s to say it won’t happen again?

auto makers make no sense at all while coming up with ever increasingly complicated & expensive power designs. I firmly believe that someday the Nissan ePower Note design will dominate the industry. It’s simple & therefore cheap

It does seem rather strange that VW is ordered to pay a $2B penalty to be put toward green transportation initiatives, and then let VW administer it. That is a very surprising move from government, which typically wants to manage all available funds themselves.

It’s nice that the Continental mild hybrid is clean, but if it gets only 2% better mpg than a regular diesel, it would seem that the 48 volt mild hybrid system could better be used elsewhere, like on gas cars. From being in European cities a few times over the last several year, I can say that the air quality is not good, and I suspect the huge number of diesel cars is largely to blame.

For clean operation and fuel economy, hybrids, like Toyota and Ford build, are hard to beat. There are some expensive materials in the motors and batteries, but they are highly recyclable, and since a base Prius sells for less than many, or most Cruze and Focus hatchbacks I’ve seen at dealers, the hybrid power train must not be that expensive to make, at least when the volume is fairly high as with Prius.

2) While I agree that the development money would be better spent on hybrids and full electrics than hydrogen, diesels, and other silly transitional technologies, even Nissan views the e-Power Note as a “gateway to full EVs” and “the Japanese brand has ruled out the e-Power Note from being sold locally[in the U.S.].”
In other words, hybrids should be used to bridge the future tech, but it will be full electrics that will “dominate the industry” of the future once their cost and efficiency reach the right level.

The intent of the Note E-power seems to be to “drive like an EV,” with instantaneous torque, and to use an excess supply of Leaf motors. A series hybrid makes no sense, unless it is a plug-in with a big battery, like the i3 REx, that would be driven mostly with plug-in power.

The more I learn about hydrogen fuel cells, the less sense they make. From info I can find, fuel cells are only 40-60% efficient, so renewable energy from solar and wind would be better used to charge batteries for cars, or provide energy for homes and businesses, than to electrolyze water for fuel cell vehicles.

“fuel cells are only 40-60-% efficient.” Why say “only.” Internal combustion engines are about 20-25% efficient. Diesels can get to 30%. Electricity from the most efficient carbon-fueled power plants is 40-60%. Solar voltaic is 15-20%, with some up to 40%. (both of these are further reduced by transmission losses) And using the same comparison, some fuel cells are up to 85%.